What Do We Do Now? Nominating Thread for a Political-Film Poll...

But yeah generally i agree that the votes carry the day

It won't dilute the results. If the film is a cipher, no one will vote for it besides the nominator.

The Great McGinty

Being There

Secret Honor, Bulworth, Wag the Dog, Primary Colors, Taxi Driver The Last Hurrah (which I've never seen).

Taxi Driver The Last Hurrah--Travis hits the streets for one last fare.

Vice
In the loop

Do ‘The Big Short’ and ‘Margin Call’ count or are they finance movies?

Le guerre est le fin/The War Is Over

They count if you want them to count...

I was gonna bring up secret honor but i really dont like it much lol

Zootopia

Death of Stalin

The Battle of Algiers, The Battle of Chile. (Not big on Secret Honor either.)

What was that one w Streep as Thatcher

The Party and the Guests (Nemec, 1966)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063371/reference

XP The Iron Lady

To Be or Not to Be

The Firemen's Ball

A Grin Without a Cat, Fahrenheit 9/11, The Times of Harvey Milk (and I guess Milk, too, though it's not nearly as good).

Oh, hm, I missed the bit of the OP that said it should have an election in it. Welp, I think most of my picks would be more like the above (fiercely political but metaphorical), so maybe I'm out of this one.

my suggestion would be that the film should have a politician or election somewhere in there

Only a suggestion.

Emily: no--I already backtracked on that. Nominate away.

The Times of Harvey Milk is one of my favorite ever documentaries

there are so many movies that seem political but are not specifically about politics

I knew heading into this it would be really tricky--maybe even more than comedy or horror, in terms of what qualifies. All I can say is use your best judgement.

Dick
Bob Roberts
Suddenly!
Bad Eggs
Rats In The Ranks
DON'S motherfucking PARTY

Which Suddenly, sic--the old Sinatra film or the quasi-remake?

Lots of online lists; this one's a good mix of the literal and the more metaphorical (with the usual barrage of click-through ads):

http://www.mandatory.com/culture/962677-big-list-50-best-political-movies-ever

I'll add The Conformist and Game Change. I haven't seen Wiseman's State Legislature, but--again, no politicians and no elections--I've got to nominate Welfare.

election (2005)
shin godzilla
othon

The President Vanishes (1934)
Gabriel Over the White House (1933)
Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932)
The Washington Masquerade (1932)

What was that one w Streep as Thatcher
The Iron Lady (2011). Which loops in The Manchurian Candidate (1962 and 2004)

Danton
La Commune
Punishment Park
Winstanley

Nocturama

If you're receptive to long and massively problematic silent films, Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916).

If you're receptive to George Arliss:
Alexander Hamilton (1931)
Disraeli (1929, and a lost 1921 version)
Voltaire (1933)
The House of Rothchild (1934)

The Taking Of Power By Louis XIV (1970)

classic(underrated?) made for tv movie by Rossellini.

is there a bit of a thin line between what arguably makes a political movie or a war movie? fuck knows.

could movies like The 317th Platoon and The Red and the White be nommed as political movies?

Surely war films are part of political film but this might widen it considerably.

The Sorrow and the Pity

could movies like The 317th Platoon and The Red and the White be nommed as political movies?
― calzino, Sunday, June 30, 2019 10:41 AM

Surely war films are part of political film but this might widen it considerably.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, June 30, 2019 10:44 AM

Both apply--I'm leaving it up to your judgement. I haven't been including nominations posed as questions thus far ("Could..."); just nominate something, and it goes on the list.

Do ‘The Big Short’ and ‘Margin Call’ count or are they finance movies?

Finance is intimately bound to politics, but I don't remember Margin Call featuring the political infrastructure that enabled the markets to get themselves into that fix. Did The Big Short call out the watchdogs that failed to bark?

Speaking of finance meeting politics and the media, The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990).

xps

The Sorrow and the Pity is something I'm going to watch soon cos of the glowing mentions in France: The Dark Years, and I thought I'd seen it, but might be getting it mixed up with Hotel Terminus.

If it's a film you like and would probably vote for, and you're on the fence about whether it's political enough, nominate it. If other voters agree, it might place.

But I'd probably avoid nominating borderline films if you don't plan on voting for it yourself.

A president, unless also Gerard Butler

I would consider 2012 more political than Independence Day (but I'm fine with them both being outwith the scope here)

To Live (Zhang Yimou, 1994)

A president, unless also Gerard Butler

I'm not sure what that means...

Oh I'm just joking - that the three "Gerard Butler saves the President" films shouldn't count as they're really not very interested in politics (and, I understand, terrible)

A Touch of Sin (2013)

was thinking of nomming that but thought it was .. hmm fuck knows.. erm cinema verite/social realism with genre touches.. but would happily vote for it nevertheless cos it's class.

on that note..

Platform (2000)

Could nom and vote for almost all of Jia's, same applies to Peter Watkins tbh. Am mulling over Buñuel at the moment.

thanks! i suspect i'll be using this poll as an excuse to catch up on a lot of things i've been meaning to watch.

Vietnam films: I'll nominate Hearts and Minds, The Deer Hunter, and Coming Home, which all have a clear political stance on that particular war. I'm less sure on Casualties of War and Apocalypse Now--beyond their default anti-war position--so I'll leave them for anyone else who thinks they belong. They seem more about the battlefield and in-the-moment sensation.

Has this been mentioned yet?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e0/No_%282012_film%29.jpg

No.

Face in the crowd!

Aka, From the Hills of Wasilla--definitely.

I added a few more films to the nominations list without posting here. (Yes, this is one of those pointless no-news-is-no-news bumps.) The list is just a guide anyway--write-ins, when voting starts, are fine.

http://docs.google.com/document/d/12Ts0EtUkx1eDgstQGLQePHbwFtBGL5rbyDtIyRtziek/edit

Ice
Report
Breaking With Old Ideas
Deserter
23rd Psalm Branch
Memories of Underdevelopment
BPM (Beats per Minute)
Westler
The Normal heart
The Making of Monsters
Zero Patience
It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives
A Virus Knows no Morals
We Want Roses Too
Numéro deux
Le FHAR (Front homosexuel d'action révolutionnaire)
Chorus
My Son John
The Country and the City: A Film With Raymond Williams
Le temps des bouffons
Winter Wind
Red Psalm
Moi, un noir
Petit à petit
Soleil O
West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty
Too Early, Too Late
Black Girl
From the Cloud to the Resistance
From the Pole to the Equator
Class Relations
Pays barbare
Piece Mandala/End War
Louisiana AKA The Other Side
From the Other Side
Race d'Ep: un siècle d'images de l'homosexualité

State of Siege, Costa-Gavras
Operación Ogro. Gillo Pontecorvo
The Champions, Donald Brittain (originally a mini-series, it was given a cinematic release and so i think qualifies)

and now i see the champions has been mentioned, i did a ctrl+f but must have made a typo

I think so, yes. They're basically a Canadian version of Kennedy-Nixon; they come to prominence at almost the same time, start as friends, end up as (sometimes bitter) rivals, and they even match stylistically: Trudeau's the glamour guy, Levesque the rumpled plodder (except in Quebec, where he's god). The one major difference is that Levesque, whatever you thought of his goal of breaking apart the country, comes across as someone with boundless integrity.

You can watch the whole thing online if you're interested:

https://www.nfb.ca/film/champions_part_1/
https://www.nfb.ca/film/champions_part_2/
https://www.nfb.ca/film/champions_part_3/

― clemenza, Sunday, June 30, 2019 5:58 PM (four days ago)

levesque comes across fantastically well

He really does. I was a Trudeau guy back then, but he was pretty clearly railroaded in some of those constitutional negotiations. I found his ultimate demise--cast aside by the party he'd helped create--very moving.

I'll get all the nominations updated, thanks.

There are 225+ films on the nomination list...I'm ready to proceed with the vote (one ballot in already); no real point in waiting a week. As I've said, write-ins are fine.

This is my idea for points--I'm the guy who gummed up Karl Malone's under-2:00 music poll with complicated alternative point-systems, and I've got another one:

# of Films Listed     Total Points Allowed        Maximum Points for One Film
      10                      100                            30
      20                      200                            40
      30                      300                            50

The total-points stays proportional the more films you list; intuitively (maybe I'm wrong), it felt like the maximum points allowed for one film should increase more gradually.

If you hate math, or want to list more films, let me know and we'll work something out. I'll wait a day and start a voting thread.

Nominations:

http://docs.google.com/document/d/12Ts0EtUkx1eDgstQGLQePHbwFtBGL5rbyDtIyRtziek/edit

I need 20 voters. Don't worry if you haven't seen every political film ever made. This isn't homework--vote for what you know and like now.

Late entrants - The Front Runner, The Bourne trilogy

...which reminds me to add Chappaquiddick, too. Of the two, I liked The Front Runner better.

Other Nixon films: Our Nixon, Watergate.

Sneak in If...., too please.

Horror films: Night of the Living Dead (as definitive on 1968 as Weekend), the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Get Out, Us. Lots more, I'm sure, but those are the first four that come to mind.

there's only one good political film, and it's captain america: civil war

no wait fuck i meant winter soldier, mods pls delet thraed

I think you meant there’s only two good political films

Added Winter Soldier, which reminded me to add Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry. Captain America in limbo, pending confirmation...

Okay, I see what you mean now...I thought you meant the 1972 documentary.

To KJB's list, I add Magic Mike XXL.

lmao clemenza <3

Anything nominated (i.e., stated, not posed as a question), I'll add to the list. I'm an easy mark here for joke nominations, especially in the realm of superhero movies--whether it's sincere or a joke will go right over my head.

I don't often make an effort to catch up with gaps in movie or music polls--pure laziness, plus I'd rather go with opinions that go back more than a week or two--but I'm going to force myself to sit at the computer for 3.5+ hours and watch Frederick Wiseman's State Legislature off Kanopy. It won't be in one sitting, that much I know.